Where to meet?
Where is the best place to meet if you want to establish and enhance relationships? Your office? Theirs?
Neither.
In many case the best place to meet is at a restaurant. There are two primary reason: 1) It’s neutral; 2) People enjoy eating; accordingly they will subconsciously associate that pleasant experience with you.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that dining out makes sense in building your business relationships. Just take a look at how much the pharmaceutical sales reps spend on taking their clients to lunch and dinner.
Keith Ferrazzi in his insightful book Never Eat Alone suggests that adding food to the mix when it comes to doing business helps facilitate relationship building. Dr. Kevin Hogan has studied this topic in detail and shares his findings in and audio interview with respect to what type of restaurant is optimal, selecting the right table, and positioning.
Persuasion goes beyond your people skills; environment is important as well. Next time you plan that meeting with a prospect or a client, be sure to keep these points in mind. They will serve you well.
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Tags: ambiance and persuasion, Dr. Kevin Hogan, Keith Ferrazzi, persuasion and context, persuasion and dining, power of influence, Power of Persuasion, prospects and persuasion, where to meet your prospects
June 19th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Great article, Frank. However, I prefer to meet someone over a gotomeeting first before I commit to driving anywhere. Relationship is important. But, I want to gauge how serious someone is. And since my business is all over the US, it’s sometimes hard to pick a restaurant in between.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Peter Caputa, you make a great point. For my readers who want to understand how technology can be employed with respect to the power of persuasion visit Peter’s blog: http://www.pc4media.net/
His tips have helped me immeasurably, and I will continue to count on them!
July 25th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Frank, this is true - you and I shared one heck of a great breakfast at Bickford’s a few years ago and talked about almost everything except business. Having that great experience start our relationship is a large part of the reason we came to work together and trust each other so much - wouldn’t you agree?
July 25th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Agreed! It shows that sometimes the strongest business relationships are forged when you engaging non-business conversation. The “guidelines” to dining and doing business in Europe suggest NO BUSINESS talk for the first third and last third of the meal . . . maybe there is some logic in that.
July 25th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
So, when do you want to have lunch?